Nate walked back to his office, set the package down on his desk and examined the card. Turning the small cheap business card over in his fingers, examining the hand written phone number.
His mind was fixated with the ten digits. Before he could stop himself images of ‘happily ever after’ flooded his imagination. Brian and him buying a small apartment in Bronte, growing old together and spending evening having dinner parties and entertaining the friends that a couple would have. Feelings of a perfect first date, where every sentence Brian says is wry and clever and insightful, and Nate having the perfect response.
He turned the card over again.
Visions of the worst date of all time flashed through his mind equally unbidden. What if he made a fool of himself, what if Brian was a moron. What if his parents didn’t like him. What if they spit up in ten years time and couldn’t decided who should keep the dog.
He turned the card over again.
He looked at the simple phone number. The one though that rang true in his head was:
“Your 29. And this is the first time that anyone has ever given you their number.”
There was a knock on his door and Nate looked up. Scarlet was standing in his doorway.
“So?”
Nate frowned. “So what?”
Scarlet smiled. “So, its been 20 minutes.”
Nate blinked and glanced at his watch.
“Are you going to ring him or not?”
Nate looked at the card.
“What if your wrong, what if he wasn’t hitting on me?”
Scarlet shrugged. “What if I’m not?” She smiled and then reached over and pulled the door closed, leaving Nate in his small office alone, shirtless, and resolved to make the call.
He picked up the phone and punched in 4 digits, got the 5th digit wrong and slammed the phone down nervously.
He tried again, this time making it all the way to the end and waiting for the phone to answer.
“Er, hi, is that Brian?”
Nate listened closely, his eyebrows furrow with the stress.
“It’s Nate here, the, um, shirtless guy.”
He paused and his posture tensing a little.
“Um, no, I haven’t opened it yet. Um, I was wondering-” he stopped, interrupted.
“Yeah, coffee.” He nodded to himself.
“Newtown?” He nodded again.
“Yeah I know the place. What-” interrupted again.
“Okay. See you then.”
He hung up the phone and sighed and slumped into his chair.
That had actually gone a lot better than expected. He glanced at his still damp shirt. It was actually his best shirt and he had nothing clean at home to wear. More problems. Was it overkill to buy a new shirt for a date?
Nate sat back in his chair and notices his still untouched sandwich. Finally, time for lunch.
—
Story continues in part 4.
Part of my creative writing class. Weekly Assignment 4.
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